Americans United - World magazinehttps://www.au.org/tags/world-magazine
enClerk’s Conundrum: Mo. Official Says She Will Not Issue Marriage Licenses To Same-Sex Couples Yet Still Wants To Keep Her Jobhttps://www.au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/clerk-s-conundrum-mo-official-says-she-will-not-issue-marriage-licenses-to
<a href="/about/people/simon-brown">Simon Brown</a><div class="field field-name-field-blog-type field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/blogs/wall-of-separation">Wall of Separation</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-callout field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Schoenrock sees herself as a “conscientious objector.” She’s wrong. This is not like a Quaker being asked to serve in the army. This woman voluntarily took a job that requires her to grant marriage licenses to all legally qualified couples. She has now decided, on the basis of her personal faith, that some of those couples don’t qualify.</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="prose"><p>The Religious Right loves a good sob story, and it seems to have <a href="http://www.worldmag.com/2015/04/a_clerks_struggle">found a great one</a> courtesy of a Missouri courthouse clerk who fears she may soon be required to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.</p><p><em>World Magazine</em>, a publication affiliated with <a href="https://au.org/church-state/october-2000-church-state/books-ideas/compassionate-conservative">fundamentalist guru Marvin Olasky</a>, recently detailed the story of Jennifer Schoenrock, a 56-year-old deputy clerk in Waynesville, Mo. Schoenrock is tailor-made for the Religious Right’s sympathy machine: Her husband is a disabled veteran, she has four (adult) kids, two grandchildren and is described as her family’s “breadwinner” with a salary of about $24,000. </p><p><em>World </em>Magazine tells us that Schoenrock is facing a moral crisis. <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/06/us/missouri-same-sex-marriage/">In November</a>, a federal judge overturned the Show Me State’s ban on gay marriage, and if the U.S. Supreme Court upholds that decision in June, Schoenrock could be asked at some point to issue a license to a same-sex couple. And if that ever happens, her answer will be no.</p><p>“I want to do the right thing,” she said. </p><p>Schoenrock elaborated a bit, saying she has no problem with civil unions for same-sex couples. Marriage, on the other hand, is something different to her.</p><p>“‘Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea,’” she said, quoting Jesus’ words in the Gospel of Mark.</p><p>She added: “These [couples] are like my kids. I can’t do it.”</p><p>It seems a stretch at best to interpret consenting adults who wish to enter into marriage as “little ones,” but that doesn’t seem to bother Schoenrock.</p><p>She clearly identifies as a conservative Christian, but the more Schoenrock said to <em>World Magazine</em>, the more she called into question the idea that granting a marriage license to a gay couple would actually cause her to violate her religious conscience.</p><p>“What good is this going to do anyone else if you lose your job over it?” she asked herself. “How does this glorify God?”</p><p>The article offers no answer to either of those questions. Instead, it speculates that things will work out because there are other clerks in the office who will serve same-sex couples.</p><p>But that’s not an answer. In what other context would such overt discrimination be “accommodated”? What if a clerk doesn’t want to facilitate the marriage of an interracial couple or refuses to give a license to a Catholic who is marrying an atheist? (After all, 2 Corinthians 6:14 does warn, “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common?”) </p><p>Schoenrock sees herself as a “conscientious objector.” She’s wrong. This is not like a Quaker being asked to serve in the army. This woman voluntarily took a job that requires her to grant marriage licenses to all legally qualified couples. She has now decided, on the basis of her personal faith, that some of those couples don’t qualify.</p><p>In other words, Schoenrock doesn’t want to do the job she is paid to perform. If she worked in a private business, maybe she could find a way to get away with that. But she doesn’t. Schoenrock works for the government, and the government is required to serve everyone without discrimination.</p><p>No one is forcing Schoenrock to be a clerk. She sought the job. If she is unwilling to perform all aspects of her job, it’s time for her to look for another line of work.</p></div></div><div class="tags clearfix"><div class="field-label">Issues:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><span class="field-item"><a href="/issues/marriage">Marriage</a></span></div></div><div class="tags clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/jennifer-schoenrock">Jennifer Schoenrock</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/world-magazine">World magazine</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/marvin-olasky">Marvin Olasky</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/au-defends-marriage-equality">AU Defends Marriage Equality</a></span></div></div>Tue, 07 Apr 2015 16:53:05 +0000Simon Brown11024 at https://www.au.orghttps://www.au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/clerk-s-conundrum-mo-official-says-she-will-not-issue-marriage-licenses-to#commentsD’Souza’s Downfall: Religious Right Favorite Sentenced For Campaign Donation Violationshttps://www.au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/d-souza-s-downfall-religious-right-favorite-sentenced-for-campaign-donation
<a href="/about/people/rob-boston">Rob Boston</a><div class="field field-name-field-blog-type field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/blogs/wall-of-separation">Wall of Separation</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-callout field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">In Dinesh D’Souza’s world, nothing is ever his fault.</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="prose"><p>Yesterday conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza was <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/23/dinesh-dsouza-sentenced_n_5869666.html?&amp;ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000016">sentenced</a> to five years of probation and a term of community service for violating federal campaign laws. He must also pay a fine of $30,000.</p><p>For many years, D’Souza was a garden-variety conservative who preached the standard libertarian line of small government and low taxes. At some point, he decided to climb aboard the Religious Right gravy train. In 2007 he penned a book titled <em>What’s So Great About Christianity</em>. He spoke at the Values Voter Summit in 2012 and has appeared at other Religious Right gatherings – often collecting hefty speaking fees.</p><p>Even while excoriating “the left” for its lack of values, D’Souza was busy constructing an ethics void of his own. In the lead-up to the 2012 elections, he was so determined to help Wendy Long, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate and a friend of his, that he decided to violate federal law.</p><p>D’Souza convinced two associates to make donations of $10,000 (the maximum for an individual) to Long’s campaign. He then reimbursed them. This is completely illegal, and D’Souza, who has worked in the political sphere for decades, surely knew that.</p><p>Caught red-handed, D’Souza’s first defense was to assert that the prosecution was really a political vendetta from President Barack Obama, a frequent target for D’Souza’s attacks. But that fell flat when the federal judge overseeing his case <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2014/09/16/dsouzas-astonishingly-incoherent-defense/">quickly noted</a> that several Democrats had been charged with the identical offense at the same time.</p><p>So D’Souza basically threw himself on the mercy of the court. He admitted what he did was wrong and claimed to be very contrite – at least that’s what he said in court. D’Souza sounded less than contrite outside of court, where he continued telling fellow right-wingers that the whole thing was an Obama frame-up.</p><p>D’Souza could have faced more than a year in prison. Instead, he will spend eight months in a kind of halfway house and do community service once a week. All in all, it’s a light sentence considering that he knowingly violated the law.</p><p>That’s hypocrisy count one.</p><p>Here’s count two: In 2012, D’Souza left his wife for a much younger woman. While still legally married, he arrived at a Religious Right conference in September at a Baptist church in South Carolina with his new paramour, Denise Odie Joseph II, in tow. He introduced her to several people as his fiancée. (Joseph was <a href="http://crooksandliars.com/2014/04/secret-recording-dinesh-dsouza-his-lovers">married as well</a>.)</p><p><em>World</em> magazine, hardly a font of mad-dog liberalism, <a href="http://www.worldmag.com/2012/10/king_s_crisis">picks up the story</a> from there: “Although D’Souza has been married for 20 years to his wife, Dixie, in South Carolina he was with a young woman, Denise Odie Joseph II, and introduced her to at least three people as his fiancée. Finally, near 11 p.m., event organizer Tony Beam escorted D’Souza and Joseph to the nearby Comfort Suites. Beam noted that they checked in together and were apparently sharing a room for the night in the sold-out hotel. The next morning, around 6 a.m., Beam arrived back at the hotel and called up to D’Souza’s room. ‘We’ll be down in 10 minutes,’ D’Souza told Beam. D’Souza and Joseph came down together, and Beam took them to the airport. The next day another conference organizer, Alex McFarland, distressed by D’Souza’s behavior, confronted him in a telephone conversation. D’Souza admitted he shared a room with his fiancée but said ‘nothing happened.’”</p><p>Such hubris! But the fallout came quickly. D’Souza had been serving as president of the King’s College, an evangelical institution in New York City. The school <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/19/nyregion/dinesh-dsouza-is-out-as-kings-college-president-in-scandal.html?_r=0">fired him</a> – well, accepted his resignation.</p><p>But in D’Souza’s world, nothing is ever his fault. Yes, he knew it was illegal to launder those campaign donations, but Obama is still to blame. And as for his girlfriend and the whole adultery thing, that’s just some hyper-sensitive evangelicals getting all bent out of shape.</p><p>He even blamed his wife for leaving him. Not surprisingly, her version of events is a little different. She wrote a rather scathing letter to the court, which you can <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/240722830/Dixie-D-Souza-s-Letter-to-Judge">read here</a>. Spoiler: D’Souza doesn’t come off looking good. Dixie accuses him of forging her signature on a document and of physical assault.</p><p>All of this comes from a man who built a career out of smugly judging others and insisting that his religion – D’Souza was raised Roman Catholic but at some point converted to evangelical Protestantism and declared himself “born again” – is superior to any other worldview. (Check out <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1121/p09s01-coop.html">this 2006 column</a> in which he argues that atheism is responsible for mass murder.) His own arrogance led to his fall.</p><p>I don’t know what kind of community service D’Souza will be doing, but I hope it’s something like picking up trash along the highway or cutting back weeds in a public park. My fear is that some misguided official will let this guy work with troubled young people. That would be a disaster. Kids in crisis need a real role model with a moral center. D’Souza, an ethically challenged hypocrite, hardly fits the bill.</p><p> </p><p> </p></div></div><div class="tags clearfix"><div class="field-label">Issues:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><span class="field-item"><a href="/issues/descriptions-and-activities-religious-right-groups">Descriptions and Activities of Religious Right Groups</a></span></div></div><div class="tags clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/dinesh-dsouza">Dinesh D&#039;Souza</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/denise-odie-joseph">Denise Odie Joseph</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/world-magazine">World magazine</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/tony-beam">Tony Beam</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/south-carolina">South Carolina</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/values-voter-summit">Values Voter Summit</a></span></div></div>Wed, 24 Sep 2014 14:55:16 +0000Rob Boston10511 at https://www.au.orghttps://www.au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/d-souza-s-downfall-religious-right-favorite-sentenced-for-campaign-donation#commentsThe Barton Lies: Conservative Christian Scholars Debunk ‘Christian Nation’ Propagandisthttps://www.au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/the-barton-lies-conservative-christian-scholars-debunk-christian-nation
<a href="/about/people/rob-boston">Rob Boston</a><div class="field field-name-field-blog-type field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/blogs/wall-of-separation">Wall of Separation</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-callout field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Conservative Christian scholars are stepping up their criticism of &#039;Christian nation&#039; propagandist David Barton. </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="prose"><p>Is this the beginning of the end of David Barton’s influence?</p><p>I certainly hope so. The phony history being peddled by the “Christian nation” propagandist is under increasing fire from critics – and here’s the rub: They’re all conservative Christians.</p><p>As you might recall, Barton runs a Religious Right group called WallBuilders in Aledo, Texas. His central arguments are that the United States was founded to be a Christian nation, the Constitution is based on the Bible, most of the founders were evangelical Christians and church-state separation is a myth.</p><p>Barton is not a historian. He holds a degree in Christian Education from Oral Roberts University. I’ve been debunking his sloppy work since 1993. Other critics, such as Chris Rodda (author of <a href="http://www.liarsforjesus.com/"><em>Liars for Jesus</em></a>) have joined the fray.</p><p>But Chris and I represent the pro-separation-of-church-and-state community and are thus easily written off by Barton and his pals as “radical secularists.” The new flock of critics will not be so easy to dismiss.</p><p>Why are so many of these Christian critics speaking up now? I think it’s a simple case of Barton going too far. He recently penned a book about Thomas Jefferson titled <em>The Jefferson Lies</em>. In <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Jefferson-Lies-Exposing-Always-Believed/dp/1595554599/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1344518386&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=jefferson+lies">the tome</a>, Barton argues that for most of his life, Jefferson was an orthodox Christian who really didn’t support church-state separation.</p><p>Unlike Barton’s earlier books, <em>The Jefferson Lies</em> was not self-published. It even appeared briefly on <em>The New York Times</em> bestsellers list.</p><p>This proved to be too much for some of Barton’s Christian critics, and they fired back. Among the first out of the gate were Warren Throckmorton and Michael Coulter of Grove City College in Pennsylvania, who penned a thorough take down of Barton titled <em>Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims about Our Third President. </em>(You can <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Jefferson-Right-President-ebook/dp/B007ZUDUAU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1344518173&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=warren+throckmorton">buy it as an e-book</a> on Amazon for $4.99.)</p><p>Jon Fea, author of <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Was-America-Founded-Christian-Nation/dp/0664235042/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1344518598&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=john+fea">Was America Founded As a Christian Nation?: A Historical Introduction</a>,</em> has also been highly critical of Barton’s work. Fea, associate professor of American History and chair of the History Department at Messiah College in Grantham, Pa., can’t exactly be described as a raving secularist.</p><p><em>World</em> magazine has also <a href="http://www.worldmag.com/webextra/19820">called out</a> Barton. This really surprised me because it’s a pretty conservative publication that in the past has advocated for “biblical” government.</p><p><em>World</em> reported that Jay W. Richards, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute (a creationist organization AU has tangled with in the past), recently asked 10 conservative Christian professors to examine Barton’s work.</p><p>“Their response was negative,” observed <em>World</em>. “Some examples: Glenn Moots of Northwood University wrote that Barton in <em>The Jefferson Lies</em> is so eager to portray Jefferson as sympathetic to Christianity that he misses or omits obvious signs that Jefferson stood outside ‘orthodox, creedal, confessional Christianity.’ A second professor, Glenn Sunshine of Central Connecticut State University, said that Barton’s characterization of Jefferson’s religious views is ‘unsupportable.’ A third, Gregg Frazer of The Master’s College, evaluated Barton’s video <em>America’s Godly Heritage</em> and found many of its factual claims dubious, such as a statement that 52 of the 55 delegates at the Constitutional Convention were ‘orthodox, evangelical Christians.’”</p><p>Picking up on the <em>World</em> piece, <em>First Things</em>, a publication featuring conservative Catholic thought, <a href="http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2012/08/08/david-bartons-errors/">criticized Barton’s take on John Locke</a>. Blogger Greg Forster charged that Barton is guilty of “numerous distortions” and “a number of incidental factual errors” about Locke.</p><p>All of this may seem like inside baseball reaching a limited audience. But what happened yesterday was decidedly not. National Public Radio struck.</p><p><a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/08/08/157754542/the-most-influential-evangelist-youve-never-heard-of">Yesterday’s segment</a> by religion correspondent Barbara Bradley Haggerty was simply devastating. Haggerty mostly lets Barton trip himself up through his own outlandish claims.</p><p>Two of my favorites: He argues that the Constitution is laced with biblical quotations and that Thomas Paine advocated teaching creationism in schools. (Paine died in 1809 – 50 years before Charles Darwin outlined the theory of evolution in <em>On The Origin of Species</em>.)</p><p>Haggerty also asked several of Barton’s critics to fact-check his claims. The results were posted online and can be seen <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/08/08/157777697/cue-the-tape-how-david-barton-sees-the-world">here</a>. It’s not good news for Barton.</p><p>To be sure, many fundamentalists who idolize Barton will not care about any of this. And we all know that lots of folks have a deep ability to engage in self-delusion and believe what they find comforting, heedless of the facts. Witness the ongoing popularity of “creation science.”</p><p>But with the academic attacks on Barton mounting, his support is increasingly being relegated to radio ranters like Glenn Beck and political foghorns like Newt Gingrich. One can hope that Barton will be marginalized and eventually exiled to where he has always belonged: the wilderness of the lunatic fringe.</p><p>It may be a dream, but it’s one well worth having.</p><p><strong>Update:</strong> Thomas Nelson, the publisher of <em>The Jefferson Lies</em>, has just announced that it is pulling the book. More <a href="http://wthrockmorton.com/2012/08/09/thomas-nelson-pulls-david-bartons-the-jefferson-lies/">here</a>.</p><p> </p></div></div><div class="tags clearfix"><div class="field-label">Issues:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><span class="field-item"><a href="/issues/descriptions-and-activities-religious-right-groups">Descriptions and Activities of Religious Right Groups</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/issues/history-and-origins-church-state-separation">History and Origins of Church-State Separation</a></span></div></div><div class="tags clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/john-fea">John Fea</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/warren-throckmorton">Warren Throckmorton</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/michael-coulter">Michael Coulter</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/david-barton">David Barton</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/wallbuilders">WallBuilders</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/first-things">First Things</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/world-magazine">World magazine</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/greg-forster">Greg Forster</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/barbara-bradley-haggerty">Barbara Bradley Haggerty</a></span>, <span class="field-item"><a href="/tags/npr">NPR</a></span></div></div>Thu, 09 Aug 2012 15:10:55 +0000Rob Boston7433 at https://www.au.orghttps://www.au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/the-barton-lies-conservative-christian-scholars-debunk-christian-nation#comments